Taliessin through Loegres by Charles Williams Prelude I Recalcitrant tribes heard; orthodox wisdom sprang in Caucasia and Thule; the glory of the Emperor stretched to the ends of the world. In the season of midmost Sophia the word of the Emperor established a kingdom in Britain; they sang in Sophia the immaculate conception of wisdom. Carbonek. Camelot, Caucasia, were gates and containers, intermediations of light; geography breathing geometry, the double-fledged Logos. II The blind rulers of Logres nourished the land on a fallacy of rational virtue; the seals of the saints were broken; the chairs of the Table reeled. Galahad quickened in the Mercy; but history began; the Moslem stormed Byzantium; lost was the glory, lost the power and kingdom. Call on the hills to hide us lest, men said in the City, the lord of charity ride in the starlight, sole flash of the Emperor's glory. III Evil and good were twins once in the alleys of Ispahan; the Moslem crying Alla il Alla destroyed the dualism of Persia. Caucasia fell to the Moslem; the mamelukes seized the ancient cornland of Empire. Union is breached; the imams stand in Sophia. Good is God, the muezzin calls, but lost is the light on the hills of Caucasia, Glory of the Emperor, glory of substantial being. Taliessin's return to Logres The seas were left behind; in a harbour of Logres lightly I came to land under a roaring wind. Strained were the golden sails, the masts of the galley creaked as it rode for the Golden Horn and I for the hills of Wales. In a train of golden cars the Emperor went above, for over me in my riding shot seven golden stars, as if while the great oaks stood, straining, creaking, around, seven times the golden sickle flashed in the Druid wood. Covered on my back, untouched, my harp had hung; its notes sprang to sound as I took the blindfold track, The road that runs from tales, through the darkness where Circe's son sings to the truants of towns In a forest of nightingales. The beast ran in the wood that had lost the man's mind; on a path harder than death spectral shapes stood propped against trees; they gazed as I rode by, fast after me poured the light of flooding seas. But I was Druid-sprung; I cast my heart in the way; all the Mercy I called to give courage to my tongue. As I came by Broceliande a diagram played in the night, where either the golden sickle flashed, or a signalling hand. Away on the southern seas was the creaking of the mast, beyond the Roman road was the creaking of the trees. Beyond the farms and the fallows the sickle of a golden arm that gathered fate in the forest in a stretched palm caught the hallows. At the falling of the first chaos behind me checked; at the falling of the second the wood showed the worst; at the falling of the third I had come to the king's camp, the harp on my back syllabled the signal word. I saw a Druid light burn through the Druid hills, as the hooves of King Arthur's horse rounded me in the night. I heard the running of flame faster than fast through Logres into the camp by the hazels I Taliessin came. The Calling of Arthur Arthur was young; Merlin met him on the road Wolfish, the wizard stared, coming from the wild, black with hair, bleak with hunger, defiled from a bed in the dung of cattle, inhuman his eyes. Bold stood Arthur; the snow beat; Merlin spoke: Now am I Camelot; now am I to be builded. King Cradlemas sits by Thames; a mask o'ergilded covers his wrinkled face, all but one eye. Cold and small he settles his rump in the Cushions Through the emerald of Nero one short-sighted eye peers at the pedlars of wealth that stand plausibly by. The bleak mask is gilded with a maiden's motionless smile The high aged voice squeals with callous comfort. He sits on the bank of Thames, a sea - snail's shell fragile, fragilely carved, cast out by the swell on to the mud; his spirit withers and dies. He withers; he peers at the tide; he squeals. He warms himself by the fire and eats his food through a maiden's motionless mouth; in his mood he polishes his emeraid, misty with tears for the poor. The waste of snow covers the waste of thorn; on the waste of hovels snow falls from a dreary sky; mallet and scythe are silent; the children die. King Cradlemas fears that the winter is hard for the poor. Draw now the tide, spring moon, swing now the depth; under the snow that falls over brick and prickle, the people ebb; draw up the hammer and sickle. The banner of Bors is abroad; where is the king? Bors is up; his wife Elayne behind him mends the farms, gets food from Gaul; the sourh is up with hammer and sickle, and holds Thames mouth Lanc-elot hastens, coming with wagons and ships. The sea-snail lies by Thames, 0 wave of Pendragon, roll it, swallow it; pull the mask o'ergilded from the one-eyed face that blinks at the comfort builded in London's ruins; I am Camelot; Arthur, raise me. Arthur ran; the people marched; in the snow King Cradlemas died in his litter; a screaming few fled; Merlin came, Camelot grew. In Logres the king's friend landed, Lancelot of Gaul. Mount Badon The king's poet was his captain of horse in the wars. He rode over the ridge; his force sat hidden behind, as the king's mind had bidden. The plain below held the Dragon in the centre, Lancelot on the left, on the right Gawaine, Bors in the rear commanding the small reserve: the sea's indiscriminate host roared at the Ciry's wall As with his houschold few Taliessin rode over the ridge, the trumpets blew, the lines engaged. Staring, motionless, he sat; who of the pirates saw? none stopped; they cropped and lopped Logres; they struck deep, and their luck held; only support lacked: neither for charge nor for ruse could the allied crews abide the civilised single command; each captain led his own band and each captain unbacked; but numbers crashed; Taliessin saw Gawaine fail, recover, and fail again; he saw the Dragon sway; far away the household of Lancelot was wholly lost in the fray; he saw Bors fling company after company to the aid of the king, till the last waited the word alone. Staring, motionless, he sat. Dimly behind him he heard how his staff stirred. One said: "He dreams or makes verse"; one: "Fool, all lies in a passion of patience - my lord's rule." In a passion of patience he waited the expected second. Suddenly the noise abated, the fight vanished, the last few belated shouts died in a new quiet. In the silence of a distance, clear to the king's poet's sight, Virgil was standing on a trellised path by the sea. Talicssin saw him negligently leaning; he felt the deep breath dragging the depth of all dimension, as the Roman sought tor the word, sought for his thought, sought for the invention of the City by the phrase. He saw Virgil's unnseeing eyes; his own, in that passion of all activity' but one suspended, leaned on those screened ports of blind courage Barbaric centuries away, the ghostly battle contended. Civilised centuries away, the Roman moved. Taliessin saw the flash of his style dash at the wax; he saw the hexameter spring and the king's sword swing; he saw, in the long field, the point where the pirate chaos might suddenly yield, the place for the law of grace to strike. He stood in his stirrups; he stretched his hand; he fetched the pen of his spear from its bearer; his staff behind signed to their men. The Aeneid's beaked lines swooped on Actium; the stooped horse charged; backward blown, the flame of song streaked the spread spears arid the strung faces of words on a strong tongue. The household of Taliessin swung on the battle; hierarchs of freedom, golden candles of the solstice thar flared round the golden-girdled Logos, snowy-haired, brazen-footed, starry-handed, the thigh banded with the Name. The trumpets of the City blared through the feet of brass; the candles flared among the pirates; their mass broke, Bors flung his company forward, the horse and the reserve caught the sea's host in a double curve; the paps of tie day were golden-girdled; hair, bleached white, by the mere stress of the glory, drew the battle through the air up threads of light. The tor of Badon heard the analytical word; the grand art mastered the thudding hammer of Thor, and the heart of our lord Taliessin determined the war. The lord Taliessin kneeled to the king; the candles of new Camelot shone through the fought field The Crowning of Arthur The king stood crowned; around in the gate, midnight striking, torches and fires massing the colour, casting the metal, furnace of jubilee, through time and town, Logres heraldically flaunted the king's state. The lords sheathed their swords; they camped by Camelot's wall; thick-tossed torches, tall candles flared, opened, deployed; between them rose the beasts of the banners; flaring over all the king's dragon ramped.